Are You Wondering what is a Compounding Pharmacy?

Some medications are only available by compounding. For people with strict dietary and allergy requirements, compounding the medicine may be the only option. Also, compounding pharmacies cater to medication that has been discontinued or is no longer being manufactured in bulk.

What is involved in compounding medication?

• The dosage compounded is tailored exactly for the patient.
• Medication compounded can come in many forms including patches, chewable’s, suppositories, mixtures, rapid dissolve tablets, or gels.
• The medicine can be compounded free of problem-causing ingredients like certain preservatives, alcohol or lactose that may cause an allergic reaction.
• The medicine can be compounded in a vegan (eg. cellulose) capsule instead of an animal-sourced capsule (eg.gelatin).
• Can I buy compounded medication without a prescription?

What is the difference between a pharmacy and a compounding pharmacy?

Commercially available medications are manufactured by pharmaceutical companies in mass quantities for the general population with no specific patient in mind. Compounded medications are ordered by a physician, individually prepared by a compounding pharmacist and made specifically for a person’s unique medical needs.

Discontinued Medications

When large manufacturers discontinue production of a certain medication, they make it hard for the patients who still need these medicines. Compounding pharmacists play an important role in providing access to discontinued medications by compounding pharmaceutical-based ingredients in order to ensure that patients get the critical care they require. Compounding pharmacies have access to the quality tested pharmaceutical ingredients and can fill the prescription using the latest research, quality control process, and techniques that help meet the individual patient needs. If you want to learn more about discontinued medication, get in touch with a compound chemist.

Compounded medications are formulated to meet your specific needs.

Most of the problems that patients mostly encounter with commercial drugs are due to its already set dosage.  A compounding pharmacy can formulate your medications to the specific dosage that your doctor has prescribed.  For example, the manufactured dose may be 200mg but you might need 25mg. It is difficult to cut a tablet or a capsule into eighths so a compounding pharmacist can prepare the 25mg in a capsule. 

This often happens when a person has been told to cease an antidepressant. The dose of these medicines needs to be reduced slowly to avoid serious side effects and the lower doses are often not available in the manufactured form. This takes off the responsibility of dividing the dose from the hands of the patient so that the dose can be accurate. Certain medications are hard to find or are discontinued.

There are certain medications from big pharmaceuticals that are already discontinued. When this happens, patients who still need these have a hard time finding them or even a substitute.

But a compounding pharmacy has access to pharmaceutical active ingredients to create the specified medications. It uses the latest research, quality control process, and techniques to ensure that the patients get the medicine they require.

Compounding pharmacies offer unique services.

The utmost priority of a pharmacy compounding is to identify and to provide for the patients’ unique requirements. This is why they make sure that they do the research well; to research the best active ingredients, to determine a formula, and develop the method to compound the medicine that the patient needs.